Rafe Read online

  As he peered over his shoulder Bunny, her arms waving wildly, burst from the house. What she called was lost behind the rush of the wind. Something flashed in her hand that looked like his spurs, but he wasn't going back—not for all the tea in China.

  He jerked his face to the front. Still using his heels, he caught a glimpse of peaked roofs and tall false fronts poking up from scrub oak maybe half a mile ahead. And right in his path, coming down the road, was a horse and buggy—Pike on the seat.

  The girl's father, shouting, made a grab for the whip.

  Leaning wide for the turn, left hand locked in her mane, Rafe kneed Bathsheba hard around and sent her snorting through the crackle of brush.

  "Hold on, you fool!" Pike yelled, standing up; but Rafe had had all of their care he could stomach. He might not be showing the right sort of spirit, but he meant to get clear of that pair if it killed him. Ducking into the guard of his arms he kept going, booting the mare harder every time she hit ground.

  He reckoned they must have made a rare sight popping up and down through the whip of that brush. He suspected he was lucky Pike hadn't a rifle. Enraged at the thwarting of so much endeavor there was no telling what a damn Yankee might do.

  A quarter mile farther on Rafe came out of the brush on the flank of a ridge. Peering back he saw no evidence of pursuit. The only dust he could spot was ballooning up through the trees back in the neighborhood of the house he'd escaped from. He reckoned that was Pike rushing home to see about Bunny.

  It came over him then if he meant to slip into Dry Bottom at all he'd never have a better chance. It was dollars to doughnuts, once Red Nose got back, every able-bodied gent in reach would be put to beating the brush to retake him—they might even send for the soldiers! There wasn't nothing a Yank wouldn't do to skin a Rebel!

  Just the same Rafe kept on without slacking off till he'd crossed the hump and worked far enough down along the far slope to make sure any change in direction was covered.

  "Whew!" he gasped, pulling up, all a-tremble.

  He sure enough felt like he'd been hauled through a hornput. He wasn't scairt so much at the old boozer himself as he was of what Pike stood for, those damned two-legged vultures, greed and skullduggery, that was standing so much of the South on her beam ends. Maybe if they hadn't killed Lincoln things might have been different. But the way it stacked up, with Grant in the White House and them tycoons at him every hour of the night, any poor misguided Rebel that had enough savvy to punch sand down a rat hole would go to almost any lengths to keep himself clear of the blue-bellied skunks that had got themselves put in charge of this country.

  He thought of Bunny again. He plain couldn't help it, but that didn't mean he didn't know better. There was things about a diamondback a feller could admire, but that didn't signify he figured to get in bed with one! If she hadn't been a Yankee—but she was, no getting around it.

  He followed the line of the ridge due north till he arrived at an outcrop thatched with juniper and, through the branches, saw the town's roofs spread out below him. Didn't look too much. Wasn't even built around a plaza. Just a single dirt street with some lanes straggling off it; hardly bigger, he thought, than Flat Rock, Kentucky, even if it was a county seat town—he could take her word for that, anyhow. If he ever was to get reunited with his folks, county seat towns was the likeliest to hear of them.

  So he had to go in, no matter what Pike had got up his sleeve. Today was a Saturday, best time of all. Be some risky asking questions but at least, this being a market day, he wasn't so like to be the only stray cat.

  He eased Bathsheba onto the grade, letting her pick her own way. She'd been raised in the mountains and could wheel on a dime and, though she mightn't look it, she had a heap of speed. Her pappy had been a Billy horse, according to what that breed had told him, and everybody knew Billy horses was fast. Short coupled, long underneath, plenty of muscles inside and out. Hadn't been for all that hair on her legs and that broomy tail with the burrs matted into it some Yank would have stole her long before this.

  Dry Bottom, seen up close when he got into it, was even less impressive than it had been from the ridge. Marple's Mercantile, aside from the courthouse, took up more room than anything else. It was housed in a huge rambling barn of a place, and next on the right was the Bon Ton Cafe, then a harness shop, gunsmith, a pool hall and barber. On the other side was the courthouse, two-storied, all the second floor windows having bars across them. The next lot was vacant, grown to tin cans and weeds. On the far side of this was what had all the earmarks of being a honky-tonk. Foot high letters across its front said: COW PALACE—Jack Dahl, Prop.

  This Bathsheba was a real knowing mare, ever alert to Rafe's best interests. She'd spotted this joint even quicker than he had and, ears cocked, stopped short, one eye rolling back to see how he was taking it.

  As a matter of fact he was still peering round. The next structure beyond housed a hat shop and baker, and after that was the bank, double-storied and brick as befitted so established a place in the community. The whole last block on that side was taken up with a feed yard and livery, the poorer homes spreading out to the south, tiny islands of junk among the cholla and greasewood topped by an occasional flowering saguaro. The more affluent had their residences on the lanes feeding off the main drag.

  Bathsheba pawed impatiently. Thus reminded, Rafe hitched up a leg and got down. He sure didn't like to spoil her this way but there wasn't much choice if you were hunting information. Her last owner must have been a sure-enough scholar because if a man didn't take a firm hand with her she'd haul up in front of every grog shop in sight.

  Rasping his jaw with a wistful look in the direction of the barber's pole Rafe reached around to catch hold of the reins, only then recollecting the loss of his bridle. "Well, hell," he said and, ducking under the rail, pushed through the bat wings into Jack Dahl's.

  If mirrors and mahogany and naked females on canvas was any measure of prosperity this Cow Palace, Rafe decided, must be a mighty source of comfort to all who had a stake in it. Though it wasn't precisely packed right now it was doing all right for the middle of the day. The faro layout, cage and wheel, and even the blackjack table had customers, and a mob three deep was bellied up to the bar. Evidently, and plainly not too far away, there were mines in production to judge by the Cousin Jacks jostling elbows with the teamsters and cowhands milling about a roped-off twenty-foot square of dance floor perspiring and noisy as a sackful of frogs.

  Tobacco smoke swirled in blue layers below the bright flare of the Rochester lamps which apparently were worked day and night in this dive. In constant circulation a bevy of cuties in spangles were hustling to separate the boys from their wages. There was a sudden scramble for the arena as a three-piece band swung into the rollicking strains of Soldiers Joy.

  Near as sudden as it started, and before Rafe had latched hold of someone he could talk to, the music went sour and splintered off into dischord. Following the startled sweep of eyes doorward Rafe saw framed in the bat wings the longnosed freckled face of Bathsheba. With her lip peeling back she threw her head up and nickered.

  The cowhands guffawed hilariously, clouting each other and hooting and hollering. A heavy-set gent in gray derby and striped leg-clutching pants got red-faced out of his chair at the poker game, went stomping past Rafe with his mouth whitely clamped about a stump of black cheroot. Like a prodded bull with his eye on the muleta came a beetle-browed bouncer and a third burly specimen, getting shed of his apron, came hotfooting out from the bar with a bung starter just as Bathsheba pushed in through the doors.

  Rafe stuck out a leg. Beetle Brow, loping into it, hit the floor spraddled out and cleaned a swath through the sawdust three foot long with his chin. The cowpunchers, hooting, liked to laugh their fool heads off. Bathsheba, after the fashion of one not entirely sure of her welcome, came timidly in. The guy in the derby waved his arms, started swearing. The barman ran up waving his bung starter. Bathsheba rolled her eyes and whinn
ied. The bartender said, "She's slipped her headstall—"

  "Never mind that—get her out!" shouted Dahl, brandishing his derby and sure enough seeming about fit to be tied.

  The bouncer, a little glazed in his expression, with a knee drawn under him appeared to be trying to get himself up. The feller who had took off his apron was sidling around with one arm stuck out, it being difficult to tell if he were trying to catch the mare or only keep from being stepped on. There wasn't much doubt what Bathsheba thought about it. Stretching out her neck she showed him both sets of teeth.

  The barkeep jumped back. The crowd roared and hooted. Dahl cried furiously, "Who's the owner of this monstrosity?" and Rafe didn't know whether to speak out or not. He figured a lot could be said on both sides of the question; but when the beetle-browed bouncer, still on one knee, commenced to fumble a hip pocket, Rafe didn't have much choice. He sent the bugger sliding with a well directed boot.

  Dahl and the barkeep both of them livid, converged on him threateningly. From someplace Dahl produced a sock filled with shot. The barkeep, glowering, lifted his bung starter.

  "Now, just a minute—" Rafe said, nervous.

  "Get her out," Dahl said, "and get 'er out quick!"

  Rafe said uncomfortably, "Bathsheba's kind of notional. She—"

  "You got thirty seconds!" Dahl sounded half strangled.

  The mare, watching Rafe, began to look a little reproachful. "Go on, you!" the barkeep growled, flourishing his bung starter. He cut around, moving nearer. The mare showed the whites of her eyes.

  "Look out," Rafe warned. "No tellin' what she'll do if you excite her."

  Mr. Dahl said viciously, "You puttin' her out or ain't you?"

  Rafe, tired of being shoved, yelled, "No!" and Jack Dahl stopped in his tracks.

  He took a long look at Rafe and, beckoning up two more of his hirelings, spat out his cigar. "Take 'em, boys," he grunted, and closed in behind to give them a hand.

  The barkeep made a wicked pass with his bung starter. Rafe, sliding under it, put a boot against his belly and the barkeep's winds went out with a mighty whoosh, Bathsheba, ears flattened, began backing toward the bar, the crowd at that end making haste to move elsewhere. Rafe, as though reluctant, backed off some himself.

  Beetle Brows, on his feet again, cracked an ugly grin. He had a gun in his fist—a short-barreled pocket pistol, and it seemed fairly well established he intended to use it. Dahl and the other pair, scrinch eyed and malevolent, were stepping farther apart to come in on the flanks.

  "Look," Rafe grumbled, "I'm peaceful as hell when I'm left alone, but if you're goin' to play rough I won't be responsible." He shook an admonitory finger under Dahl's nose. "You fellers keep on—"

  "And you'll do what?" Dahl said with his lip curled.

  "Just remember," Rafe told them, "you been warned."

  Now Dahl was a man who had considerable pride. He had moved to Dry Bottom with a number of his friends who'd been in on that Jayhawking business along the Kansas border. He liked to be thought a pretty tough cookie; and besides all this the place was packed with galoots he needed to impress, hard-rock men and rough playing cowpokes, all watching with grins and filling the ozone with cheap advice. He couldn't afford to back down—not even if this drifter proved more fruity than he looked.

  Dahl tugged an end of his black moustache, swung a hard look around and fetched up his chin. The barkeep took a fresh grip on his bung starter. Beetle Brow's grin, above the snub-nosed pistol, spread in pleased anticipation. The other pair, grunting, spat on their hands and then, all together, the whole push moved in.

  The gaunt stranger, sighing, looked extremely reluctant—everybody afterward, agreed on that much. Some claimed he never actually moved so much as a finger until the barkeep's bung starter whacked against the mare.

  Then everything seemed to happen at once. The Rebel's left boot, sailing up out of nowhere, took the barkeep under the jaw like a ball bat. He stretched six inches and went out like a light. Nobody saw the stranger reach for his iron, but suddenly the glint of it was slicing through the tangle like the knives of a dozen Injuns. It went whunk against something and Beetle Brows, without even time to let go of his pistol, popped out of the melee like he'd been shot from a cannon. Arms flailing wildly he went down with a thump, blood on his face, shirt hanging down like a tatter of doll rags. Bathsheba, with her head tucked between front legs, was kicking hell out of the bar when another of Dahl's bruisers went slamming head first into a wall and kind of wilted.

  Dahl shook like the steam had run out of him, but only for a moment. Red necked and livid, he yelled in a fury, "No secesh bastard that ever was foaled—"

  Rafe's gun started pounding. When it quit all those beautiful mirrors plus a sizeable number of stacked bottles and glasses were in shards on the floor and Dahl's eyes looked like they'd roll off his cheekbones.

  "This has gone far enough," a new voice said crisply. A frock-coated gent in a stovepipe hat, whiskers curling out of his jowls like piano wires, pushed from the crowd to stop by Dahl's elbow. Even Bathsheba left off what she was doing as, avidly silent, all heads swung to watch. In his rusty garb of the backwoods politician he didn't look like a man who had this town in his pocket, yet he certainly had everybody's attention.

  Dahl looked about ready to call out the troops. He was so mad he was shaking, but the other said coolly, "Better let it drop," and, skewered by that unwinking regard, the Cow Palace's proprietor managed after a fashion to get hold of himself.

  He was still swelled up like a poisoned pup, the red from his neck surging into his cheeks. "Very well, Mr. Chilton," he said, like it choked him, "but who's going to pay for all that smashed glass and bar?"

  A soft pale hand rasped the mutton-chop whiskers. "It can probably be arranged for some of the loss to be written off." Chilton's cold eyes scaled Rafe in shrewd appraisal. "Do you always react with such violence to stimulants?"

  "Depends," Rafe said, "on the stimulant."

  Chilton smiled through his teeth. "Would you be interested in a job?"

  "We-ell, I wouldn't figure to put no widows and children out on the street."

  "Oh, it's nothing like that," Chilton declared. "I, ah, notice your mare has no bridle—she a cutter?"

  "She's cut a few in her time."

  "I suppose," Chilton said, "you're familiar with cattle."

  "I been around 'em some," Rafe admitted. "You got cows you want moved?"

  "Not exactly. I need somebody who can manage a ranch, only it isn't that simple," Chilton said, looking thoughtful. "If you'd care to step over to my office—" His fishbelly glance, shuttling across Dahl and his goggling understrappers, took on a trace of impatience. "I expect I can dig up enough solid facts..."

  Rafe, having also noticed their looks, cut in, "I'm persuaded for that, suh. But my old pappy always told me the first rule of business is to know who you're dealing with."

  "Tsk, tsk—of course. I'm so in the habit of everyone—" Clucking again, he pushed out his chest. "Alph Chilton at your service, president and general manager of the People's Bank & Trust. Capital assets eight hundred and fifty-four thousand, surplus one hundred—"

  "Proud to meet up with you," Rafe said heartily, grabbing the pale hand and vigorously pumping it. "Just Rafe, here. Not much surplus but ample room for improvement as the feller said."

  The banker, wincing, extricated his hand. Flexing it a moment, and apparently reassured, he said, "I must be getting back, but if you'll step over for a moment I feel certain we can arrive at a profitable arrangement." That last he pushed out with considerable unction, not smiling exactly, but nevertheless managing to give the impression of an unending jingle of cascading dollars all bound for Rafe's pockets.

  *****

  The bank was the only brick building in town. Lines of jostling people, all with money in their paws, stood before the tellers' cages in an ornate lobby replete with guards and grilles and an overabundance of stuffed animal and bird heads; and the
pride of them all, a dusty bald eagle, hovered on spread wings above the door to Chilton's office.

  The banker escorted Rafe past the gun hung lackies, herded him inside and got him ensconced in a leather-covered chair that sort of closed out the world's woes like the sweet scented arms of a harem houri.

  Chilton, after removing his hat, pushed a box of fat cigars across the shine of his desk and then, while his guest was stowing away half a dozen, fetched out a bottle of fine bourbon and a pair of glasses.

  Rafe, surreptitiously pinching himself, picked up the pushed-forward nearest. Cold eyes sparkling above the rim of his lifted own, Chilton proposed, "Your health, young feller, and all that goes with it."

  Rafe smacked his lips and, feeling some stronger, gawped around like a bumpkin. The banker evidently lived about as high off the hog as a man in this country was liable to get. Recognition of this brought to mind an old saw having to do with gifts and Greeks. With that jaw, and eyes that would have looked as much to home in one of those moose heads, Chilton's red carpet welcome had a lot more behind it than was being tossed onto the table.